


Quixotic

by siba



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Italy, M/M, Renaissance Era, SnK Minibang 2016
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7930873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siba/pseuds/siba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quixotic (adj)- Exceedingly idealistic, unrealistic and impractical.<br/>Rivaille is an artist in the 15th century in the middle of an artistic revolution that is the Renaissance. Yet, it seems that every other artist is progressing in their artistic endeavors but him. All the while, there is this idea of perfection that keeps taunting him. His hands itch to create something that he cannot see, his mind is taunted by this muse that keeps escaping him just when he thinks he knows what he has to create. It isn't until his trusted friend drags him to the market that he finds what he is looking for in a slab of marble. From then on, Rivaille sets out to create this perfect being that has been taunting him. But after another drunken night with his closest friend Hanji, they discover that the statute created has gone missing. It it's place, stands a nameless blonde man who knows nothing of the world and is the perfection Rivaille had been looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quixotic

“...While no one knows for certain, many officials at the Oxford University Art Conservatory have theorized that the greatest work of the Renaissance, what now is called ‘The Wings of Freedom’, was created by an immigrant to Florence. While their name is not known, there are accounts that the painting and sculpture recovered from the small underground town of Shiganshina, Italy are in fact the originals created by this mastermind of art.”   
-Times Magazine. 16 July 20-”

“Are you shitting me, Hanji.” The small, angry, ‘mastermind of art’ sat in front of his wooden and splintering work bench. The number of times he'd gotten splinters from that piece of shit excuse for furniture was completely surreal; he was entirely sure that the incompetent bastard who made it was just trying to spite him. Every time he would move during his sketches, there was another log of wood trapped under his skin and torturing him until he had the time to dig it out. Which, at the rate in which he was working, he never seemed to have the time.   
“I'm completely serious Rivaille, you should study under that Da Vinci fellow. I hear his art is exquisite, perhaps you could learn something. Like patience-” the brunette woman says with a broad grin, making the corners of her eyes crinkle behind that contraption she always had on her face in front of her eyes. Hanji swore that it helped her see, the two large panes of glass held on with some leather and a metal apparatus she had invented, personally Rivaille just thought she was insane. She was going to poke her eyes out one of these days.   
“Tch. Like hell I'm going to learn from an old fool. He's about to pass on anyway, why even bother?” He pauses for a second before making a clear noise of disdain with his tongue, “..says the woman who studies from a madman.” Rivaille was only jesting, teasing Hanji on her obsession of scientists passed, it made her seem even more like the mad scientist he knew her to be. The fact that she studied so intensely the theories of madmen passed, while herself pretending to be a man to continue her learning, was ironic beyond belief to the angsty artist.   
“Brunelleschi wasn't mad! He was brilliant-” There went that dreamy eyed expression she always had when talking about the famous italian engineer, her shit-brown eyes going wide behind her glass contraption and her frame slouching forward with a dramatic sigh. If Rivaille himself wasn't so obsessed with studying the art techniques of others in a fashion similar to how Hanji studies her fellow scientists, he'd have said she was obsessed. Yet, he understood all too well the need to find a method to his madness in terms of art.   
The raven haired male moves back around in his chair, looking back over the faint lines he had created with the hope that some sort of inspiration would come to him. Yet that temptress eluded him once more, making sure that the young aspiring artist was left with a headache and a scowl. If the truth were to leave Rivaille’s lips, he'd admit that he was terrified to work under such an artist as Da Vinci; a man who seemingly had everything that Rivaille himself didn't. He was sure the old man had patience, money, time to pursue his own interests rather than work to paint portraits of wealthy merchants and their obnoxious families. Rivaille, on the other hand, was struggling to create something of his own. He was amazing at still-life paintings and sketching what he saw. Yet when it came to creating his own ideas, he drew a blank every time. Everything he created just seemed inadequate; it was like he was trying to create something spectacular, only he didn't even know what it was. The idea taunted him, that devilish muse was shunning him. Whatever the hell his hands desired to draw, paint, or sculpt, hadn't yet come to him. But it remained, like an itch that cannot be scratched until he achieves whatever his mind so desired. At times, it became worse than a mere itch. It would burn into the back of his skull, making his very being ache to create this ideal piece. However, with no image in his head, Rivaille’s hands would be unwilling to move. Frustration would set in shortly after and would be followed by a burning rage at his own incompetence.   
Several minutes passed in which the taunted artist sat there, glaring down at the parchment below his fingers. The crinkled edges were flattened by his thin fingers, what is it that his pale digits desired? What was it that his heart and mind yearned for in his art? What the hell was he missing? The spice to his food was gone, all of his art was bland and lifeless like many called the man who created it.  
“..Rivaille. You're doing it again.” Hanji utters from her position atop a tall stool, giving her a brilliant view of the scowl and furrow to Rivaille’s eyebrows. It was a common expression for the young artist, whenever he became too frustrated in his work. It usually lead to a lashing out by the small angry man at anyone who dared enter his work space.  
“I know.” His tone of voice was lifeless, lined only with a frustration that wouldn’t go away for many hours. If Hanji knew anything, it was that such a tone was her cue to go and leave this little bundle of existential angst to to his creativity blockade. If not she ran the risk of having pencils and paint thrown at her, it had happened before too many a time.   
“I'll take my leave then. I'll be back tomorrow evening.” The brunette leaves her friend with a ruffle of his short hair, uneven underneath the longer strands on top. During their last drunken escapade, in which Hanji and Rivaille had gone about the city and wrecked havoc upon innocent citizens and animals, it seemed much of Rivaille’s once long hair had been burnt. To the day, neither of them remembered what happened. But the result was a shorter haircut for Rivaille, done by Hanji and a rusty dagger she had the following morning. Although underneath the longer hair, was an undercut which was caused by the brunette messing up too many times and cutting it far too short. After accepting his mess of hair that Hanji called a style, Rivaille ignored the odd looks he received upon going into the central markets and continued on with life. It was only hair, he would live.   
His only acknowledgement of her departure was a soft grunt followed by a jerky motion that some may call a nod. All the while, his cloudy eyes remained fixed on the parchment before him. It was golden around the edges, he felt that gold was important in such a drawing. Despite what his mind wasn’t telling him, his heart told him such. Even as the door to his small apartment closes, he doesn't move an inch from his shitty wooden desk that was giving him more splinters by the second. Yet for the moment, everything in his life was pushed away but that shitt desk and the golden paper below his gaunt hands. His mind was reeling, his eyes peering down at the faint figure that seemed to appear before him on the paper. It was a person, undoubtedly a human being. The picture his mind was painting wasn't clear, he was looking through translucent waters to find the treasure below; Rivaille needed that treasure. That glimmering gold and amethysts that promised a calm mind if he could reach it. If he could just visualize it, he could draw it-  
Just as his charcoal touched the parchment, the image was gone. The waters were turbid once more; instead of seeing the outline of the treasure he so longed for, he saw a piece of parchment. “Shit-” Rivaille protests, but his hand with the charcoal had already begun to attempt trying to recreate whatever he was able to visualize. A figure, a large one at that. But that's all he had seen. The slop that he had scribbled down, wasn’t even worth being called human.It was a distortion, a freak of nature, nothing like the image he had for just a few seconds that was his epitome of perfection. To the lay person, what he had sketched out in mere seconds took immense talent; but to Rivaille, it was as good as horse shit.  
“Fuck! No!” A shout rips through his chest and escapes his lips, one that reverberated throughout his tiny apartment. Those nimble hands moved immediately, ripping apart the innocent piece of parchment until it was nothing but scraps of unusable paper against his floor. The drawing and the little pieces of paper were as good as animal feed; the charcoal lines of Rivaille’s abomination could barely be seen on the little fragments of crushed dreams.   
Leather boots were slapping against feeble beams of wood that made up Rivaille’s apartment floor. As much as he wanted to leave the horse shit of an attempt on the ground to rot; Rivaille began to bend forward and pick up every damn piece, a sneer on his lips as charcoal coated his fingertips and palms. He couldn't stand to see his home and workshop dirtied by such a thing as this failed artistic dream. The pieces were thrown into the fire pit and used as kindling for the fire that would cook his dinner some hours later, after another three failed attempts were tossed in to join their horrendous cousin in the fire. All four attempts that evening ended in yelling, the ripping of innocent parchment and Rivaille pacing around his house until the desire for food could no longer be ignored.   
From that point on, Rivaille kept himself busy with meaningless tasks; all of which would lead to the creation of another simple dinner. The raven haired artist just needed an excuse to keep himself from brooding over his inability to create something as simple as a figure drawing. Surely that was a sign that he was a failure of an artist, a pathetic disgrace to the previous artists who had so graced the earth with their created beauty. Yet, there he was; sitting by his fireplace with no idea what he wished to create, nor any ability or knowledge on how to create it. There he remained, crouched in front of his stone fireplace while watching the bread rise at an increasingly mind-numbing pace. All the while, in the stone fireplace beside the bread, a iron cauldron held what remained of vegetable soup he'd made the day prior. It had been during another spat of self-resentment that the victims of his rage had been none other than the vegetables in the soup. Their only crime at the time had been that they existed on his small eating table. But it was well known that if someone didn't get out of Rivaille’s way during a fit of rage, he would tear them apart or hurt someone in trying.  
Did the Da Vinci man do the same? Did he hurt himself or others in fits of rage when his hands would not move how he so wished them to? It was possible such an old man took his anger out in different ways, by drawing out his frustrations or calming himself down over a nice walk. Perhaps it was that Rivaille was flawed as an artist; doomed forever to only draw what he can see. That surely is a curse to any self respecting artist, not being able to express creative talent. It was a curse that had plagued Rivaille since the day he moved from France to Florence, following his mother’s dying wish that he study his passion and become an esteemed artist. But most of all, the beautiful Kuchel had only wished happiness to her young son. Would she have smiled down upon him now?   
All brooding thoughts were pushed away the moment his soup came to boil once more, causing the top of the cauldron to rattle with the steam attempting to escape the heat of the fire. Rivaille only wished that he too could escape the heat that bounced around his apartment and created a room that was as warm as the fields during the harvest season. The kindling he had used to begin his dinner, was nothing more than ashes by the time the bread had risen and was cooling on a nearby wrack Hanji had created for him nearly a year ago. It was supposed to be something functional, a device more useful than a bread-rack. Yet they had both grown used to the fact that Levi did not care for such gadgets.   
His meal was quiet; it was a time in which the only sounds that dared slip into his open windows, were the sounds of street walkers. Those which spoke rapidly in Italian, shouting about everything from the coming of the devil, to the newest liquor that had been imported from far away lands in the South of the country. The song of the partridge slithered into the desolate apartment, creating a more lively atmosphere that was completely unlike the brooding nature of Rivaille himself. The dainty song of the red footed bird bounced around the wooden complex, hitting everything with its’ song and lifting up the burdened heart of the frustrated artist. Surely if there was a god, it was mocking Rivaille with such a beautiful yet simple melody sung by an animal so beautiful by nature. The bird was a creation of some God somewhere. Surely, this being must have thrown away previous ideas of the partridge that proved to be too unworthy? Or was that just a problem of man? Man being imperfect and attempting to create something perfect; by the laws of nature it was impossible.   
Yet, Rivaille still felt that urge in his chest and a fire in his stomach that indicated something was missing in the idea that mankind couldn’t create that which was perfect. His heart told him that the laws of nature were lies. The laws set forth by ‘nature’ that perfection was only attainable through God. This creation he was attempting to bring to reality, would show his scorn for these ‘laws of nature’ that so thought they could reserve the right to create that which was perfect.   
It was both inspiring and discouraging to think how improbable it would be for a detrimentally flawed man like Rivaille to create this piece of perfection. It renewed the determination and revitalized his stubborn nature that kept him fixated on this muse that always seemed to dodge his advances. It also renewed his determination to clean the entirety of his shanty, starting from the pots of waste to be disposed of and ending with a bath for himself once his entire home was spotless. He sunk down into the warm water of his tub, that which had been painstakingly drawn and boiled over his dying fire. The water burned his skin in the most splendid of ways, leaving the formerly pale man a rosy color when he finally emerged from his sanctity of cleanliness. By the time he was finished bathing, it was early in the morning hours. The sun had yet to rise in the star riddled sky. The song of the partridge had been replaced by that of the morning lark, whistling it’s tune to alert all who dared stay up, that morning was quickly approaching. Thus, Rivaille covers his windows with cloth once more to keep out the sun and strips down to the nude to sleep, curled under a thin sheet of fabric..   
The obsession Rivaille had over this perfect artistic masterpiece, was an unhealthy one at that. The amount of parchment wasted in the span of three days equaled that of what Rivaille would usually use in six months. Self-made canvas was wasted as well, tossed into the fire pit to fuel yet another rage filled meal that would push him to continue in his endeavors. After three days, it was his trusted friend Hanji who dragged him from his spotless apartment and to the main marketplace to replenish both his art supplies and his food. Rivaille was still living off of vegetables he had grown weeks previous and bread he had baked a week before. Both of which, Hanji was convinced were contributing to this maddening obsession that had taken over the mind and body of her closest friend.   
The streets of Florence were nothing but foul to the eyes of Rivaille; places in which animal and human waste lay about, collecting flies and insects from miles around. Although, as of late, the government officials had only condemned several streets to such a fate, dripping in filth and reeking of death and disgrace. Rivaille avoided such condemned roadways like the plague itself, steering Hanji clear of the vile conditions so that neither of them be dirtied or gain a new ailment from such conditions. It was not uncommon that rolling in such filth would lead to death in their city. Despite those streets that were disgusting to the infinite degree, the rest of the streets were relatively clean by their standards. Houses, apartments and living quarters lined both sides of the busy roadways, the clacking sound made by the hooves of farm beasts reverberated on the cobblestone paths. Carts followed after these beasts, carrying everything from produce, to the bodies of those who died and were to be cremated in the countryside.   
People spoke in loud, booming voices just to carry on a simple conversation over the sounds of the roadway beside them. Luckily, right about the time that Rivaille felt his temper beginning to boil over, they had just begun to cross the bridge Ponte Vecchio. The bridge was one of his favorite spots in the city, it was where he began his art career years before. He would sit on the side of the cobblestone roadway and offer to paint rich nobles and their families for nothing more than food. There, he would paint them with the river flowing in the background and the beautiful brick arches behind them. Rivaille eventually saved up enough money doing such, that he could buy his own apartment and begin a legitimate career in the arts. Ponte Vecchio was the place where he began to refine his skills in painting landscapes. The young man would sit on the edge of the bridge and paint the scene before him of the River, the city and the bank below his frame.  
The sounds of loud talking seemed to fade away, lost over the rushing waves of the Arno River below them. Rivaille stopped by the familiar arches of the bridge, those which gave him an impeccable view of the bank beside the river, verdant foliage and trees that hung over the water and deposited little leaves, adding to the character of the river herself. It made the young artist wonder whether he was similar to the trees, an artist among many who would contribute to the character of his city and add to an evolving culture. But perhaps, he was best represented by fish hidden below the water, an artist that was never to be seen lest he be killed It seemed that so many had found their fortune and fame in death. He could have just ended it there, by taking one little step forward and plunging into those murky waters below him. In death he would be sanctified and revered. Yet, Rivaille knew all too well that he would survive and have to deal with Hanji’s bickering for several more years.   
He continues behind the tiresome brunette woman, the one who had stopped and attempted to drag him once more down the cobblestone road in the hopes of getting to the main market square. At the very least, Hanji understood that Rivaille was not a talkative man, so for the short time that Hanji wasn’t rambling about a new discovery, they walked in a companionable silence. Soon enough, their pleasant hush was shattered by the thunderous sounds from the main marketplace of Florence. The entrance of the square was not a considerable distance from the Ponte Vecchio, yet it had felt like ten years from the moment his foot left that beloved bridge to the point in which he stepped into this mass of ignorant peasants.   
The people of Florence bustled about, screaming children tugging on their mother’s hands in an impatient manner. Pompous businessmen and merchants tried to swindle commoners from their money in any way that they could; hard earned money that could be the difference between life or death to a family. It was a disgusting display of greed that made Rivaille scowl the more he passed by such instances, Yet, for the most part he ignored the bustle of people around him and avoided touching anything that could be considered dirty by his standards; which, was nearly everything from the barrels of food sitting about to the grubby hands of little brats running around with the latest toys. For the most part, he ignored the noises of the farm animals surrounding them in stalls and the bellows of their owners attempting to sell the malnourished animals which were hiding under poorly made marquees, consisting of cloth and fragile wood that any peasant could find by the banks of the river.   
The only thing Rivaille focused on, were the sellers of supplies he may need for his daily life and his artistic endeavors that so plagued him. He bought vegetables, yeast and flour for bread that he could bake on his own, rather than letting it rot beside his fireplace and being a waste of both money and time. All the while, he only wished that Hanji would stop talking to the merchants so that he could return to his home and brood over his lack of artistic creativity. That is, until his eyes settled on an object rarely seen in the market places. Off to the side, hidden in between a breadsmith and a farmer’s produce stand, stood large blocks of glimmering white stone. It radiated the beams of light that so dared to peek past the shitty cloth that was an excuse for a roof.   
While Rivaille stood there gaping at the lustrous stone that had so entranced him; he could feel the call of that elusive temptress once more. The figure that was his perfection, was laying in those large blocks of stone. Shining gold and brilliant cobalt was hiding in those rough edges; beneath layers of wan stone, was that treasure that he had been looking for. Rivaille didn’t bother waiting for Hanji, nor did he listen to her bickering when she finally realized that her companion had abandoned her in the middle of a discussion with a metal merchant. Instead, the small, raven haired artist walks directly up to the elderly gentleman who was in charge of the stand, based on how much of a pompous ass he looked to be at first glance.   
Rivaille didn’t bother with beating around the bush, he already had his resolute gaze on a piece of marble, standing nearly three feet above his own small stature at a height of what he assumed was eight feet. He barely listened to the man listing off prices for artists of his ‘specialty marble from the mountains’-  
“How many florins for the eight foot marble piece.” Rivaille asks in a monotone voice accompanied by the expression of a disciplined man; it was such an expression that was eerily similar to the one he wore whenever he would paint or create something and encounter the frustrations that had been plaguing him for months. It was surely not a welcoming appearance, but for the young artist, such a manner was rare.  
“My young man, it is surely out of your price range for a novice-” The elderly man begins, that stupid silver beard of his swaying in the breeze which came from the banks. Those black, beady eyes of his were just as lifeless and bland as those of Rivaille; yet somehow they managed to be much more judgemental. What a bastard.  
Rather than saying he had the money, Rivaille takes out his bag of Florins, tossing it onto the wooden counter top of the shop. It landed with a deafening ‘thud’ just in front of the frail and wrinkled hand of the old miner. “A thousand Florins for the stone, a wagon and ass. Both of which I will return, I have no use for such pests. Only this stone.” His tone of voice was curt and to the point. Clearly, Rivaille was not such a novice as this man had expected.   
During the rest of the time spent at the threadbare stand, the old bastard said nothing to Rivaille. Even during the time in which the old bat had his assistant help him load the marble onto an equally worn down cart, nothing of directions was said to Rivaille nor Hanji. It seems he was out of his stale lines and poor excuses to feed to Rivaille.   
The marble was laid on it’s side, to ensure that it would not fall over or be ruined on the excursion back to Rivaille’s apartment and through the treacherous streets of Florence. Rivaille would rather duel a man before a hand be laid on this precious marble; the last thing he needed was for someone’s sordid hands to spoil the treasure that laid in that stone. It was bad enough watching the old bat’s assistant touch his eight foot canvas and not being able to inquire about where his vile hands had been. Part of Rivaille didn’t want to know what filth lay in those fingers, yet another part of him wanted to dip the young man’s hands in boiling water to ensure that he was worthy enough to touch it. It got to the point that Rivaille would sneer at Hanji or the swaying of the rented ass, it’s despicable hair threatened to dirty the stone and ruin his masterpiece.   
Rivaille did the best that he possibly could to distract himself from the filth that threatened to invade and destroy the purity of the stone. He did so by watching the poor assistant who was sent with Hanji and Rivaille to bring back the poor excuse of a wagon and ass. His shoulders were broad and his skin pale, much like that of Levi’s. He did not look as if he was from the area due to his unnaturally large build and bright yellow locks of hair that covered his head. Rivaille liked the color of his hair, but his figure was far too stocky. It was a figure that he could easily compare to that of a walking tree stump for this man had no curves.   
Of course it was Hanji, the woman with no reason not to talk, who struck up a conversation with the young assistant during the time that they were making their way off of the bridge. It was a pity that Rivaille was disgusted by the means in which the marble was being transported. If it hadn’t been so, he would have stopped to see the sun as it set over the river. The sun would have cast vermillion rays of light over the banks and tricked the eye of the beholder into thinking that the waters were a brilliant green, rather than the normal dark colors of the waves below them.   
The conversation held between Hanji and the man who called himself Reiner, was a brief one at that. His accent was similar to that of Rivaille’s when he had first come to Florence, meaning that he was from the northern kingdoms. Due to the fact that Rivaille only listened whenever Hanji’s roaring voice was heard above the idle hum of the street, he picked up minimal details about this brute of a man who worked in the mines of marble. Reiner was from Lorraine, where he was the eldest son of a mining family. Rivaille didn’t bother listening to the sob story that he fed to his companion, it was most likely to get more money out of the emotional sap that she was. Since Hanji was distracted by the seemingly engrossing life story of the young assistant, the trip was much quieter for Rivaille. The time he was given to walk along behind the marble and gaze upon it, gave him a better grasp at what exactly he was attempting to reach for when he created this treasure.   
When they finally arrived at Rivaille’s small apartment, he could feel his hands beginning to ache with the desire to cave. It was as if his body had planned out the sculpture, leaving behind Rivaille’s mind that so attempted to box in this masterpiece by using logic or some sort of analytical means. The moment his foot stepped into his doorway and he took in the sight of his spotless apartment, the realization that he had been approaching this in a completely erroneous manner struck him like a blow to the face. Logic and reasoning were not the means through which he would be able to complete this task. Rather than measure everything out, spend months planning and execute it in the organized manner that he so loved to follow, he would have to throw that method out of the window and let his hands guide him. It went against all of his teachings, every single piece of advice he had read from books and from the masters themselves’, but if it meant getting this devil off of his back and being able to complete the project, he would do it.   
Reiner helped Rivaille and Hanji haul the large chunk of marble into his tiny apartment. It was placed beside the decrepit workbench in which he had been slaving over meaningless drawings. Yet neither this bloke of an assistant or Hanji could see the frustration and torment that this decrepit wood had seen by the hands of Rivaille. Neither of them could hold the weight this worthless desk could when Rivaille would rip up his papers or pound his fists against the top; only to earn more splinters and frustration. Despite how much Rivaille hated that desk for all that it was worth, he had come to respect that aged wood that held him up for many years. But finally, Rivaille would have to rely on the desk no more, there would be no more existential angst as to why he was an artist. No, he would create his masterpiece and be done chasing the treasure that he so desired.   
Once the large marble stone was placed beside his desk, Reiner was quick to take off and head back to that old bat of a merchant; leaving Rivaille, Hanji and the stone. The first task of his, was to prop up the stone so that it stood up straight and would not easily tip over during his process. Rivaille never imagined books to be so useful in the process of sculpting, but they proved their worth by making adequate props for the stone. Next, the young artist dug out his many sculpting tools, those of which he hadn’t used in some time. It had been many years since he had created something from stone, perhaps that was why he never imagined his treasure would be buried in the deep set ridges of marble.   
As per the usual, Hanji was perched in her chair, watching Rivaille with raised eyebrows and a curious expression on her dumb face. For the first time since she was conceived, she was quiet while watching Rivaille begin to chisel away at the edges of the marble. On any other day she would comment or poke fun at the fact that he had to use a chair to be able to work on the top of the statue. On that day, she had never seen her companion to be so determined. It was as if the pointed chisel and mallet were a part of his body. The mallet moved swiftly, hitting against the edge of the chisel and sending the rigid metal forward against the stone. Rivaille chipped away, edge by edge and hit by hit. He was patient in creating this masterpiece. Rather than get angry and threaten to just begin hitting the marble wherever he so pleased, he kept following the desires of his hands.   
During the time in which he worked Rivaille didn’t speak. When it came time for Hanji to take her leave and return back to her own living quarters, he gave her nothing but a curt nod and a soft grunt. Although his motions brought his attention back to the stone once more and how his hands worked to begin shaping this blob of a figure. Rivaille worked late into the night, until the song of the morning lark alerted him that he had stayed up far longer than he had intended to. Yet, by the time he had finished that morning and finally decided to lay down and rest, he could begin to see through the murky waters of this devilish inspiration.   
The average sculpture would take Rivaille anywhere from two weeks to two months. This devilish piece took him four months. From the beginning of the process when Rivaille spent hours on end carving out the form of this ever elusive figure, to the time that he spent doting over every detail. All the while, it never came together in his mind until he was able to see what he had created in front of his own eyes. After four months of slaving away at the finite details, worrying about the placement of the chisel or if he was sanding this in the correct manner so that the light would shine, he was finally able to see the treasure that had eluded him for so long.   
The summer season had given way to a nice rainy season, one that kept the streets around constantly damp and allowed Rivaille the opportunity to listen to something other than the idle chatter of drunkards and the song of the birds in the early morning. It was then, with the soft pitter of rain accompanying his revelation, that Rivaille was able to finally revel in the perfection he had so created. It was the figure of a man that had been etched from stone and come to life with the golden flames of the fire behind it. The sculpture had broad shoulders, muscular and sturdy, like those of a working man. His chest was equally as wide, where perfectly shaped pectorals gave way to a powerful abdomen. It was ridiculous to say that such a sculpture was exuberant in regards to it’s power, just the form that it was given was that of a powerful man. Although Rivaille himself had no knowledge as to how he could have come to create something so majestic, the man was still awe-struck as to how his feeble hands could make something so magnificent.   
The sculpture itself was six feet easily of solid pearl magnificence. It seems that Rivaille’s hands had created this piece so that much of the weight of the sculptured remained on the figure’s right leg. It flowed effortlessly with the rest of the man’s body, especially with how his right hand was facing upwards and extended. It was as if he was reaching for something that the figure loved dearly. It surely would have been touching if Rivaille wasn’t focusing on how smooth even the pads of the sculptures fingers looked. Had he really been able to accomplish such majesty? With his scarred and bruised hands, was perfection able to be born from the ashes of that which was deemed imperfect? Of course, Rivaille’s proof was standing directly before him.   
Despite the strong stature of such a large frame, the expression worn by the figure was nothing but warm. It was what Rivaille would describe as a ‘love struck fucker’ expression; large eyebrows furrowed and the quirk of the figure’s lips indicated that there was a smiling still hiding in that stone. Surely if he had been able to capture that expression, his heart would have exploded some time between sanding the features and the final touches. The golden rays of the fire did nothing to help that warm sensation that had settled onto the figure before him, molded with care and precision. It was as if the figure had taken on a state of it’s own, no longer being the creation, but now standing as an equal before Rivaille. Of course, the idea was preposterous when he considered it in depth. He would always just be a creator, such inanimate objects could never be something of his equal when he had spent hours on end crafting everything about them. He had taken care into shaping every detail, both seen and unseen of this figure before him; Rivaille had been so thorough in that he had sculpted the very shape, length and size of the figure’s genitals. The young artist had carved out every muscle, every fiber and vein that protruded porcelain skin and made this being look that much more alive. Every lock of hair, down to the curvature of the figure’s toes had been painstakingly created by Rivaille; they could never be equals.   
Rather than continue to ponder over whether he could ever be the companion of an inanimate object, Rivaille set himself upon the task of cleaning his apartment and makeshift workshop. Despite the early hour and the patter of rain against his rooftop, Rivaille was determined to sweep up the remaining dust that littered his floor and so made him crinkle his nose with disgust. The soft sweeping of the broom against the wooden panels that made up his floor had a calming affect. The sound helped to soothe his fried nerves, likely from working so long on this piece. The bristles of his trusted broom caught nearby everything, from the fine dust created when Rivaille had been sanding his sculpture, to the larger bits of marble that were no larger than a florin. All of which were gone from his life and his house the moment that they touched the cobblestones of the street outside of his home.   
He swept until the golden sun had begun to breach the clouds, casting flaxen streams of light over the dark grey clouds. At some points, where the clouds of rain appeared to be nothing more than mist, the colors of the sun and water mixed together. In those moments, standing in front of his opened door with broom in hand and a coat of exhaustion covering his expression, everything felt perfect. If just for a second Rivaille could imagine himself somewhere else, where he wouldn’t be bothered by such trivial things as painting for rich bastards or worrying about when his next elusive muse would decide to appear and inspire him to create something that he couldn’t even imagine. It would be a time and a place where he would not have to worry about making his mark as an artist. Rivaille would be able to create whatever he so wished without worrying that what he was making was utter garbage to both his eyes and the eyes of whomever dare look upon it.   
Just as quickly as that beautiful sky had come and cast a sense of ethereal delight over the angsty artist, it was gone. The rays of the sun were covered by thick grey clouds, those that indicated it was to be a rainy day that particular day. But that was of no concern to Rivaille once he closed his front door and the floor of his apartment had been cleaned of all evidence of marble. Once he had stripped himself down to the nude and slipped under the comfort of his cloth blankets, nothing in the world could have bothered the artist while he drifted off into a dreamless slumber.   
Rivaille didn’t care that he had slept for much of the day, he supposed he had earned that much at least for finishing the project that had kept him awake for the majority of four months. The sculpture that had so worked him to the bone both mentally and physically. He had carved away at the marble until his hands had bled from the constant contact against rough stone and hard metal. Rivaille had even talked to himself many a night when he carved, just to ensure that he would stay awake and keep from hurting his hands any more. He was sure that one more hit to the fingers by his mallet would have broken his hands and postponed his work for several more months, if not a year. By then who would have known where that elusive temptress of a muse would be.   
When he wasn’t sleeping, Rivaille was reheating stew and preparing the ingredients to make himself small loaves of bread over the burning fire, that which no longer burnt on crushed ideas and hopeless dreams in the form of paper. The time between meals was spent resting and tending to the numerous cuts and and bruises he had along the curves of his fingers. Rather than go to a physician who would likely cut them off, he proceeded to wrap them in cloth and carefully dab water onto the cuts every few hours, just to be sure that the wounds were clean. The cloths he used, he was sure to boil in a fresh pot of water before even daring to apply them to the cuts and bruises he had. After which he would let them dry on the back of his shitty desk while he cooked and napped throughout the day. The click of his boots was a sound heard every few hours only Rivaille became restless enough to pace around his small apartment while he racked his brain for the next thing to work on. The moment that his fingers had begun to itch for the feeling of a brush and his nose craved the smell of oil paints, Hanji burst through his front door with a bottle of wine in a manner that indicated she thought she owned the place.   
“What the hell are you doing here?” Rivaille inquires from where he was sitting on the edge of his bed, poking at the fireplace with a metal rod in the attempt to ignite the new log he had placed on the hearth from the dying embers. Of course Hanji managed to make an entrance in such a way that the entire region would know she was there and halfway under the table. There must have been a second bottle that hadn’t made it to his apartment.   
“I have come to celebrate!” Hanji mumbles with a broad smile crinkling the corners of her mouth, her feet were quick to guide her towards Rivaille’s bed. It allowed her to plop down beside him at an uncomfortably close distance. This woman had no clear boundaries when it came to physical contact, that was for damn sure.   
“Celebrate what? Did your lunatic teacher get arrested once more?” He snorts, shooting Hanji a roll of his eyes and ignoring that fake look of surprise and shock on her expression. She was over dramatic both drunk and sober it seemed.   
“Of course not! That was only once-” She says as her arm nudges against Rivaille’s side, digging into the fabric that covered his ribs and the top half of his abdomen. “I came to celebrate the completion of your project. The one that you have been neglecting your liquor for-” She shakes the bottle of wine in front of his face, as if the liquor it held was so tempting that he would be enticed by such a juvenile display. While it was true he had given up liquor during the time in which he was working on his masterpiece, it was mostly because Rivaille hadn’t wanted to destroy it or have a drunken Hanji destroy something he had poured his very soul into creating.   
“How did you know I had finished?” Luckily the drunken brunette had stopped shaking the wine bottle in front of his face. At least she realized that he would not be persuaded so easily.   
“I had stopped by this morning when you were asleep to drag your sorry ass to the market. But when I stepped in, you looked so peaceful that I couldn’t help but leave you! So I simply investigated your sculpture, it appeared done so I thought we should celebrate!” They both knew that Hanji would have bought the wine anyways, even if the sculpture hadn’t appeared to be finished. Rivaille could see the scenario now, where she would burst into his home in a manner similar to that of before and say that he needed a break from his strenuous work.   
Rivaille could not deny that the offer of alcohol promised more relief to his fried nerves that had barely been soothed by sleep and the patter of rain against his roof. At least for the time being, the droplets had muffled the cacophonous sounds from the street beside his home. But there was still the anxiety eating at the back of his mind that something would happen to his masterpiece with a drunken Hanji in the nearby vicinity. During their last drunken escapade, Rivaille had lost much of his hair and ended up with this shit haircut. He didn't want to imagine what the ludicrous woman beside him could do to his sculpture.   
“..Fine, we shall celebrate. But we will only drink in the taverns and return to your home to rest. I don't need you and that shitty contraption on your face breaking my art.” From that point on, the night seemed to blur together as the two companions made their way from one tavern to the next in the beautiful city of Florence. While no hair was cut off that night, there were many adventures that the friends had partaken in during their numerous drunken escapades throughout the city. A mule had been stolen, a trip was made to Hanji’s workshop, a lightning storm was narrowly avoided and a bolt of lighting may have struck far too close to home for Rivaille’s comfort. But with the cozy embrace of a bottle of wine and a fog settling over his mind, soon enough the angsty artist couldn’t have cared less about what happened to both his statue or Hanji. The tug of sleep was far too strong, by the time they had arrived back to his apartment and he had settled onto his bed while Hanji played with what Rivaille called her ‘expensive toys’. While she played with her scientific equipment, Rivaille finished off his fourth bottle of wine for the evening and laid upon his cot. All too quickly, the sandman had tugged him into the snug embrace of a dream-filled slumber, one that protected Rivaille from the harsh realities that were to face him come the morning.


End file.
